


the suburbs are all sleeping

by slybrunette



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-29
Updated: 2010-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series AU. In the future, Ellie will not remember her summers in the correct order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the suburbs are all sleeping

In the future, Ellie will not remember her summers in the correct order.

All attempts to set her straight will be met with the ditziest of hand gestures, alluding to her supposed forgetfulness, maybe a laugh or two, and her smile will be warmer than the California sun on her back.

It will be the first real lie she will ever tell.

(Her family has a knack for it, after all, but she won't know that for _years_.)

 

 

-

 

 

Ellie spends a period of three weeks, from late July until mid August, in Hartford, Connecticut in 1999. She was visiting old friends from high school who had moved out there. They had asked her to stay an extra two weeks longer than she had initially planned.

( _Lie._ )

Ellie spends a period of three weeks, from late July until mid August, in Hartford, Connecticut in 2000. She was visiting old friends from high school who had moved out there. She met Bryce Larkin without knowing he was _that_ Bryce Larkin, until it was too late anyways. She stayed an extra two weeks.

( _Truth._ )

 

 

-

 

 

In Bushnell Park, her fourth night there, a man that smells like too much whiskey knocks into her, shoulder to much broader shoulder.

He doesn't pause to look back and apologize; she doesn't expect one when she yells back, "hey, watch where you're going".

A hand on her elbow steadies her as she steps back, half a second before her foot would've collided with a root, long and thick, leading back to the Turkey Oak that looms behind her, casting shadows on the brightly lit carousel that spins on, unaffected. She breathes out, harsh, and the grip tightens, firm but not enough so to become uncomfortable.

"Careful, there," says the man with the blue eyes and the head of wavy dark hair.

"That man has had way too much to drink." Her four second summary glance doesn't leave her with a lasting impression, and she watches the offending man's retreating back, the wavy line his footsteps cut in the grass and the path of passers-by. "We're in a park. Right by a carousel – there are children here."

The hand that isn't still wrapped around the crook of her arm – she'd failed to notice that he hadn't let go, though his grip had loosened marginally – turns until his watch faces up. "It's almost six; it'll be closed soon. And I'm fairly sure those aren't all children."

Her friend Kelsey's new boyfriend Al is currently attempting to get both feet underneath him and stand up on _top_ of the white horse he'd previously been content to just ride, much to the woman manning the ride's chagrin.

There's a lot of barely held-together chiding from her, a few tries of _please sit down, young man_ , and Ellie just shakes her head.

"I'm really not sure how you'd draw that conclusion," she replies, and when she looks up he smiles wide, revealing straight white teeth, and it's the first time she finds him charming.

It won't be the last.

 

 

-

 

 

He walks her back to Kelsey's car when the park closes.

Even in late July, the nighttime temperature has dipped down to the low sixties, and she walks back with crossed arms to make up for skin that's cool to the touch. She's headed to UCLA to start med school in September and she tells him as much, conveying much more confidence than she maybe actually feels. He tells her he goes to school in California, but in a passing sort of way that doesn't allow for the question of _where_ , so she lets it go.

They did introductions ten minutes too late, after Al had been formally kicked off the carousel, more or less for good, or at least a year, and she told him she'd never heard the name Bryce before, without thinking.

He tells her Eleanor means 'light' and she tells him she always hated her name because it made her sound more uptight than people already thought she was. Ellie was the name of a twenty-something with her whole life ahead of her. Eleanor was not.

She jots her cell phone number down on his hand in red sharpie, due both to the nature of the afterthought and a lack of paper, and tells him she'll be in town for the rest of the week. He smiles but doesn't kiss her. She didn't expect him to.

 

 

-

 

In the car, she remembers the name of her brother's roommate is Bryce and makes a mental note to tell him as much.

In the bathroom sink, she scrubs her hands but can't get the tips of her fingers to be anything but stained with red.

(Of all the memories, this is the one that will stick the most, pop up at inopportune times later on.)

 

-

 

 

Two days later, she meets him for coffee.

Bryce grew up here, somewhere in the West End, but he doesn't mention his parents and Ellie doesn't ask. She likes to think he returns the favor.

 

 

-

 

 

He must still live in their house during the summer, she determines in short order when she pulls up in her rental outside of a two-story Victorian monstrosity, on a street that's full of them.

"How long are you staying?" He asks, holding the door open for her to pass through after she's had to contend with the dog walker on the sidewalk and three overeager Jack Russell terriers circling her ankles.

"Oh," she doesn't know why it catches her off guard, even preceded by the usual greetings, "I'm flying back out the day after tomorrow. The friend I'm staying with is heading down to the beach – some kind of family vacation."

There's disappointment in his expression, slight but noticeable.

"You know if you want to hang out here a few more days, you can stay here," he offers. "There's two spare bedrooms upstairs. You can take your pick."

It's not even a thought. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

His gaze is penetrating and she almost feels a little out of her league, a little bit inexperienced, which is ridiculous. She's twenty-two and he's – she doesn't have a clue how old he is. How did she miss that?

"It's just that I told my brother I'd be back and, with him at college and me at med school we just don't get a lot of time to be just, you know, a family."

The soft smile, the nod of his head, the casual way he stands, all speaks to understanding. She can't tell if it's genuine or if he just knows enough to feign it with ease.

There's something about him. He's just this side of too charming.

"Of course. Family is important."

"But you don't have one?"

"We're not close."

It's deliberately vague. "But you just said – "

"Maybe it makes me more aware of what I'm missing out on," he shrugs but there's an odd sort of sentimentality buried behind it that rings true.

 

 

-

 

 

She doesn't find her way into his bed until the next night.

That would be a record for some of her friends but Ellie's never been easy, in any sense of the word.

 

 

-

 

 

This will be where the lie comes in.

In 1999, Bryce Larkin would've been, for all intents and purposes, a stranger.

The same does not hold true with the turn of the new millennium.

 

 

-

 

He kisses a line down her damp skin, his tongue swirling around her navel once before he settles between her thighs.

She bucks when he flattens his tongue against her.

 

 

-

 

 

In the night, Bryce's phone rings twice.

The calls go unanswered but not unchecked, and she murmurs a "what's going on?" once she remembers where she is.

"Just a friend of mine who doesn't understand that they have last call for a reason."

When she rolls over onto her side, his arm chases her and she finds she doesn't mind.

 

 

-

 

 

She doesn't fly back to California the next day.

Instead, she throws her stuff in suitcases, hugs Kelsey goodbye, and drives back to the West End on a whim that's only half thought out in the early hours just after dawn, while she lies in his bed and listens to the sound of the shower running.

 

 

-

 

 

"This isn't," she runs a hand through her hair, still warm from the flat iron, and he's searching for something that might be his car keys. Hers are in her purse, her car parked right outside, but the concert they're going to at Constitution Plaza doesn't start for nearly an hour, so she holds her tongue. "I'm not staying because I'm trying to turn this into a thing. You know that right?"

"I thought you were staying because you were having fun."

"I am." He pulls the keys out of the pocket of a coat she can't imagine he needed in recent history, champions them with a wry grin and bright eyes. She's too busy noting his accuracy. "Actually, that's exactly what I'm doing."

Whatever surprise is evident in her tone seems to amuse him. "The only question I have, really, is whether or not it's just your stuff staying in the spare room."

The sudden light tone, deviating from the serious, catches her off guard but only for a second. She's getting more used to him. "Well, I did say I was here to have fun."

Bryce smiles, before offering her his hand, "And fun you will have."

She takes it.

 

 

-

 

 

She waits until three days after she should've been back to call Chuck.

Morgan answers and the noise she makes in the back of her throat probably could've been friendlier. Bryce screws up his face, only half hidden by his copy of the Times across from her at the breakfast table, and for the few seconds it takes Morgan to put Chuck on she gets a little lost in the domesticity of it all.

"Hey, sis," Chuck breaks through, loud and clear, "you don't call, you don't write."

"I know, I'm sorry," and she really is, "I just decided to stay an extra week or two."

"I thought your friend was going to the beach or something."

"Her plans fell through." She doesn't know why she lies, she just does it. It kind of makes her sick, how quickly it rolls off of her tongue.

(In hindsight it's interesting, that this is the time she chooses to lie to her brother; like she knew what was coming barely a minute before it did.)

"Plus I've made some new friends here," she adds that, to make it a little less of a lie, "and you've apparently got Morgan to entertain you."

"Oh, yeah, he's – " she can hear the smile in her brother's voice, right up until she hears something resembling a crash, "he's here alright and, listen, Ellie, I really got to go."

"Chuck." Her voice comes out sounding a little squeaky; she lives there too, after all. "Chuck, what just happened?"

"Love you," he says, rushed, and then the line goes dead before she can return the sentiment or even threaten Morgan with some kind of bodily harm. She stares at her phone for a good long few seconds.

And then she decides that she just really does not want to know.

"My roommate's name is Chuck," Bryce says, absentmindedly, turning the page.

It jogs her memory. "Oh, that's right, I was going to tell you that my brother's roommate's name was – " and in one heart-stopping moment it all comes together and she's glad she hadn't raised that glass of orange juice in her hand to her lips. "Where did you say you went to college again?"

"Stanford."

Every muscle in her body tenses.

 

 

-

 

 

They hadn't exchanged last names when they met.

She wouldn't have picked up on the Larkin, but he certainly would've noticed Bartowski.

 

 

-

 

 

Ellie does sleep in that spare room that night.

And if she left right then and there, maybe this would be excusable.

Except she doesn't.

 

 

-

 

 

He takes her along to meet some friends of his, at somebody's house, and she spends a few minutes in the car wondering why it's not at a bar before she connects the dots.

"You're only nineteen?" It comes out in a rush, her wide eyes and his quick glances, mostly paying attention to the road in front of him.

"Yeah," he says, and owns it. It's not a sheepish reply in the slightest.

Which, it's a three year age difference. It shouldn't be a big deal. It's not a big deal. But he's her brother's age and her brother's friend and her brother's roommate, and the list just keeps getting longer. The odds against them get stacked higher and higher.

There's another long stretch of silence before he says, "We don't have to talk about this."

It means _we don't have to tell Chuck about this_.

She runs her teeth across her lower lip and is glad her lipstick isn't anything bright but rather a faint pink.

"I know," and she does, but it's a big secret and she doesn't know how anyone can lie to someone they're that close to for so long. Maybe for forever.

She doesn't know.

 

 

-

 

 

His phone starts up again, middle of the night, except this time they're in the middle of something too.

"Do you need to get that?" She pauses, on top of him, and he looks like he would really rather she hadn't bothered to ask. Or stop.

Bryce's hands press along her hips, her ass, and his eyes are only a little unfocused with it all. "No."

She sinks down on him again and he groans underneath her.

 

 

-

 

 

She doesn't wake up until noon the next day.

It's abnormal – she's always been an early riser – and the revelation that not only is he not in bed but he isn't in the house either.

 _Be back soon_ , says the note on the table, blue ink on college ruled notebook paper, and she makes herself breakfast and heads out to see one of Kelsey's friends that she hit it off with.

When she pulls in to the driveway at seven thirty, she's still the only car there. There's brick edging along the old flower bed on the side of the house, and the third brick from the right is fake, hollowed out on the inside. The spare house key is there, just like he told her it would be, and she lets herself in.

His phone goes straight to voicemail.

 

 

-

 

 

It's five to two in the morning when the bed shifts.

"What?" Her hands grope for him in the darkness, palms against his stubbly cheeks, and only then does she open her eyes. She's groggy, in that pleasant place between dreams and consciousness. "Where were you?"

He grins against her lips, kisses her once, and then pulls back to pull off his shirt and slide under the covers. He presses a kiss to her bare shoulder, whispers, "Go back to sleep."

She doesn't mean to but she does.

 

 

-

 

 

In the morning, she books her flight for three days from now, and tries to ignore the lingering feeling that she's not the only one who's telling lies to people.

 

 

-

 

 

"Where did you go?"

"When?"

"Last night."

"That?" He blows it off, but in a genial sort of way. His charm is finely tuned, enough so that people overlook his flaws; she's beginning to realize that more and more. "Had to get a friend out of a tight spot."

"Like jail?"

"Not exactly."

His evasiveness just makes her push harder. "Is that the same friend who's been calling all the time?"

"No."

Except they both know it is.

 

 

-

 

 

The night before she leaves, he takes her out to dinner.

It's uneventful, straight until they get through the front door.

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

"I know."

"So that means you can tell me what's going on, right? Because I know something's going on. I know you're into something and I know you're my brother's roommate and both of those things pretty much spell disaster."

"Ellie," his hand slides up her arm, comes to grasp at the elbow, the same hold as he had at the park. Solid and steady. "I really have no idea what you're talking about."

"Is it drugs?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

Even she doesn't believe it herself. "Then what?"

"There's no what."

She shakes her head, shrugs off his grasp. He makes her nervous for reasons that she can't explain. He always has but it's a different kind of nervous than it was originally. He's her type, well-educated, sweet, not at all overbearing, obviously attractive. It's just this one thing. This one thing that she can't put her finger on.

"Just, whatever it is, keep my brother out of it, okay? Can you do that?"

"I wouldn't let anything happen to your brother, Ellie," he replies, soft and genuine, losing the joking tone of five seconds ago all together, and she doesn't know why but she chooses to believe him.

Maybe it's because she's scared of the alternative.

 

 

-

 

 

They end up against the linen closet on the second floor, with her dress pushed up to her navel and his slacks pooled on the floor, belt still through at least half of the loops.

She hitches on leg up and it's only by some miracle that they manage not to come crashing down onto beige carpeting.

Her legs shake when she comes.

 

 

-

 

 

Afterwards she packs.

The spare room sees her for only the second time, that night.

 

 

-

 

 

"I meant what I said," he says, when he pulls the car up outside of the airport, just before noon.

"About?"

"Your brother."

"I know."

 

 

-

 

 

She will not remember the last thing they said to each other until she sees his face in black and white in the obituaries.

 

 

-

 

 

 _fin._


End file.
